Yesterday, GamePolitics reported that British newspaper the Daily Mail had raised serious ethical questions about the conduct of Labour MP Keith Vaz in relation to a court case involving a political donor.

The coverage of Vaz, who has been the U.K.'s most vociferous video game violence critic over the years, prompted an unsolicited comment from Jack Thompson.

Thompson, of course, is the most strident of video game critics in the United States and one might be forgiven for assuming that he and Vaz share some common cause. Not so, apparently. Of Vaz, Thompson writes:

I had my own dealings with MP Keith Vaz regarding the Stefan Pakeerah matter. I found Vaz to be deceptive [and] unreliable...

He's a political opportunist... I wish he would get the Hell off the video game issue. People like him don't help us. Boris Johnson, on the other hand, is credible, in my opinion.

The disbarred Miami attorney also questioned Vaz's ethics. Although GP asked, Thompson did not provide any specifics as to what may have soured his relationship with Vaz.

Stefan Pakeerah was a 14-year-old constituent of Vaz's who was murdered by a 17-year-old wielding a claw hammer in 2004. Rockstar's Manhunt was newly available at the time and Vaz has sought to link the game to the killing ever since. Thompson, of course, is no friend of Rockstar's, either.

Comments

The one and only cause which Jack Thompson's truly interested in furthering is the greaterment of Jack Thompson. Everything else, including all the "Christian" bullshit, is simply a means towards that end.

I think you guys are being a little bit unfair to these people...you call them "political opportunists", but all they really want to do is help society by keeping our children safe and away from anything that will cause them to lose their moral views. I for one, support these guys and hope they suceed in making the world safer for our children.

Whilst I respect their wish to make the world a better place, it's not their beliefs that are the problem. They think that 'their' way is the only way that is acceptable of 'fixing the world', and they are far more inclined to make sure the world is a 'better place' for them personally, they don't actually much care if it's a better place for anyone else, they simply use the 'help that parents, protect the children' line because it's kind of like a political multi-plug, it'll work in any situation.

Vaz isn't a total waste of space as a person, neither is Thompson, but they are, however, selfish, vindictive, deliberately stupid and the kinds of people who will happily use misrepresentation and lies to get their own way.

They can go after Video Games if they like, that's not a problem with me, but what amazes me is that they are far too insecure to actually do so on a level playing field, they have to try and twist the crowd against us, because if they didn't, they are afraid that the truth would defeat their prejudice.

"Stefan Pakeerah was a 14-year-old constituent of Vaz's who was murdered by a 17-year-old wielding a claw hammer in 2004. Rockstar's Manhunt was newly available at the time and Vaz has sought to link the game to the killing ever since."

Even a cursory glance at that case shows what a drooling idiot Vaz actually is. Pakeerah was murdered by a guy called Warren LeBlanc in a rather disturbing and unprovoked crime. Several of the tabloids got wind of the fact that a copy of Manhunt was found at the scene, and they tried to blame Manhunt for inciting the murder.

Of course, there was zero evidence of this. The copy of the game found belonged to Pakeerah, not LeBlanc. Beyond anecdotal claims, there's no evidence LeBlanc ever played it. In fact, the very next day, police made a formal statement denying that the game had anything to do with it. The motive for the murder was robbery, pure and simple.

The case should have ended there, and invesitgations made into the more realistic causes of the crime (drugs, abuse, mental issues), why any warning signs were missed and how to prevent anything similar happening again. Of course, these are mundane and don't grab headlines, so Vaz continues to lie and deflect resources from the real issues. When your career depends on distorting and lying about an issue that even Scotland Yard have outright denied is true, you're clearly worthless.

So, on the rarest of occasions, I find myself agreeing with Thompson. Not that he's any better, but I suppose it takes one to know one... As for Boris, does anyone really take him seriously? I thought he was just the bumbling fool that made a few funny appearences on Have I Got News For You (comical British panel news show) and got elected by default when Londoners got tired of Ken Livingstone.

The mother of the murdered teen made many calls to get the game banned (with some shops temporarily obliging), and started many campaigns against the game. It then turned out that the public was mislead over the game when in turned out that it was indeed 17-year-old Pakeerah who owned the 18-rated game, and not the murderer who had strong links to drug crime and was believed to be in debt to some of the gangsters. The question was never asked whether Mrs. Pakeerah bought the game for her son (as he was underage to purchase it himself) and whether her calls were for the outright ban of the game were well and truly unjustified if she had bought the game herself.

Now that you mention it, I do recall Dava Tunis saying pretty much the same thing about Thompson. But, as I also recall, her opinion carried just a little bit more weigh and effect than does Thompson's opinion about Vaz.

When the whole Pakeerah matter hit the headlines I seem to remember that Thompson either contacted or tried to contact the family, I guess when they went with the ambulance chasing political instead of the ambulance chaing lawyer it irked him.

Different show in this case (Deep Space 9, rather than the Next Generation), but yes Facepalms are fairly common and you can probably find them for every captain and first officer regardless of series.

There is, but it can be a bit of a foolish saying; so many things can go wrong with it since i kinda implies taking on friends blindly... i mean, in the short term it works out well, but not so much in the long term; if you are not careful, the friend's we make due to them being "enemies of our enemies" could end up becoming our enemies... not to mention that those "friends" could end up doing more damage than good for your cause. I mean, look at the crap in the middle east... factors like Sadam and Afganistan were orginally products of the US; the country was very anti-commie and thus quick to support anyone who shared the sentiment... but down the line these very same forces the US supported wound up becoming our enemies... and it still goes on today; countires terrible governments and such that are just as bad as any other are supported just because they are willing to be more supportive to us then our enemies

hell we can even relate this to the anti-gaming issue... essentially a lot of the anti-game critics would be far better off if they did not try to get Jack's assitance; his methods only serve to hurt their cause. and make the rest of them look bad... i remeber a long while back, NIMF while they are a bunch of morons were smart enough to put a good deal of distance between themselves and Jack...

It's the difference between being an opinionated pundit who doesn't really know what they're talking about, and actually being in power and having to generate an economy and balance a budget. It is, at least, better than them berating games for some kind of fictionalised downfall of society when they're actually in power, as so many of them do...

But then, Boris has been in my good books (despite being a Tory) since he berated Keith Vaz in an expletive-filled phone call last month, so if you mention it again in a couple of months time, I may be less apathetic about his flip-flopping :P.

He's a troll of all trolls. Trolling even the trolls that troll the same things as him. When two trolls collide one of two things happen (and strange that they are opposite things). They join forces out of their mutual dislikes, or one troll considers the other one competition and starts to badmouth him.

This reminds me of a situation at a message board where a rabid anime-hater made fun of all the anime fans and made slanderous remarks about them. Then one day another person started the same anti-anime diatribe, and the first guy's reaction? "STFU! No one takes my ideas!"

That's JT all right, always having an obsession over forming enemies (he boasts about it in his book).

"somewhat ironic"? Are you freaking kidding me? Jack's statement requires a whole new quantum leap on the irony meter. The device has not yet been built that can register that level of irony without exploding. I don't know that there's a name for a number large enough to measure how ironic Jack is.

Pure comedy gold from our favorite court jester.

Saying that Jack Thompson is impotent is an insult to impotent men everywhere. They've got a whole assortment of drugs that can cure their condition; Jack, however...

And yes, it's JT not wanting to compete for attention with Vaz. JT tried to pwn the the Pakeerah case. And since the disbarment, people (beside Utah) are ignoring him, while Vaz just seems to be getting more and more spotlight.

Shout box

Wymorence: For me it just boils down to the fact that, even at a giant company, when a game comes out annually it just gives it a vibe of being rushed out the door. And god knows Unity sucked some major lemur with all its bugs...03/31/2015 - 4:22pm

PHX Corp: I launched my spotify account today, and I kinda went a little overboard with adding music03/31/2015 - 3:59pm

Sora-Chan: Con't. Games like AC are a pain to someone like me who likes to play games in order. So when a game gets too many releases too quickly, it puts me off. Only exceptions are games that have no interconnected underlying stories like the FF games.03/31/2015 - 2:53pm

Sora-Chan: Wikipedia has rarely let me down on matters like this. But yeah... AC needs a break.. like two.. or three... or eight years.03/31/2015 - 2:51pm

Conster: There's 9 already?! I think I played 1, 2, and the ones inbetween 2 and 3.03/31/2015 - 2:23pm

Sora-Chan: Con't There are now Nine... of just the main entries into the series. There are 13 more in the "other games" department.03/31/2015 - 2:15pm

Sora-Chan: I tried to get into AC. Was having a decent time with the first one, at which point they had already released three titles. Then a fourth came out... then a fifth... the wall kept growing before I could finish the first.03/31/2015 - 2:14pm

Daniel Lewis: I think ubisoft should give AC a break before it's milked to death,and i'm a big fan of the games03/31/2015 - 1:15pm

Daniel Lewis: The only thing said i disagree with is the final quote on Men's experiences are seen to be universal but women are gendered,though doesn't anita say that games with male protagonists are male power fantasies,so in turn both are gendered03/31/2015 - 1:08pm

Daniel Lewis: i found the video to be much better than any of the TvW series and it's about time the positive women are put in the spotlight03/31/2015 - 1:06pm

Daniel Lewis: So feministfrequency released a positive female character video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXmj2yJNUmQ03/31/2015 - 1:05pm

Daniel Lewis: I think the guy who made the direct leak said it was an april fools joke when a real one was announced03/31/2015 - 12:43pm

MaskedPixelante: No way Nintendo would let information like that get out. Remember, they shut down a memoir about the localization of Earthbound by enforcing a 20 year old NDA on the author.03/31/2015 - 12:42pm

james_fudge: Conster: the larger issue is that Ind. does not protect LGBTQ+ people under state law03/31/2015 - 12:11pm

PHX Corp: @MP I think it is confirmed(not an April Fools joke) http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/31/nintendo-direct-confirmed-for-wednesday-april-1st/03/31/2015 - 12:00pm

Conster: Apparently Pence intends to amend SB101 so denying service isn't allowed - without explicitly protecting LGBT+ and while still allowing the many other things you can get away with now if it's motivated by your religious beliefs.03/31/2015 - 11:53am

MaskedPixelante: http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/30/rumour-nintendo-direct-on-april-1st/ A supposed full leak of tomorrow's Nintendo Direct, so you can all laugh and laugh about how wrong it is.03/31/2015 - 11:35am